Donald Trump is preparing to stand trial in the first of four cases brought by Democrat prosecutors.
These trials could decide the outcome of the 2024 election.
And now a Judge ordered Donald Trump to make one decision that will decide this criminal trial.
Joe Biden prosecutor Jack Smith used a creative and novel interpretation of statutes to indict Trump on a never-been-tested legal theory that he engaged in a criminal conspiracy to challenge the results of the 2020 election.
Smith’s charges are a direct assault on the Constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech, petitioning the government, and seeking legal counsel.
Trump hinted that he plans to make those guaranteed freedoms the centerpiece of his legal defense.
The Democrat Judge in the case – Obama appointee Tanya Chutkan – issued a three-page ruling ordering Trump to give notice to her and the prosecution if he planned to use the advice of counsel defense.
Doing so, Chutkan wrote, required Trump to turn over documents to Smith that the former President would use to establish his defense, as well as any communications protected by attorney-client privilege that could undercut his defense.
“As he has consented to do, Defendant shall provide formal notice whether he intends to assert an advice-of-counsel defense by January 15, 2024,” Chutkan stated. “If Defendant does provide affirmative notice of that intent, he must also provide the required discovery to the government at that time: ‘any communications or evidence [Defendant] intend[s] to use to establish the defense,’ and ‘otherwise-privileged communications that [Defendant does] not intend to use at trial, but that are relevant to proving or undermining the advice-of-counsel defense . . . in their entirety.'”
Jack Smith is trying to put Trump in jail for following the advice of lawyers telling him how to challenge the 2020 election.
The lawyers didn’t have to be right, as attorneys make any argument they can get away with.
That’s why Smith’s case would have a chilling effect on the legal profession, as lawyers would now fear criminal charges should they advocate a legal theory that Democrats may one day find offensive and unfashionable.
Trump wants to make the unfairness of the charges being brought against him, in the heat of the Presidential race, the political strategy he uses to neutralize the effect of these criminal charges on the campaign trail.
But Trump will also have to tip his hand as to how he plans to defeat them in court.
